Beyond Nationalism: the Estonian Popular Front\u27s Visions for a New Estonia

Established in 1988, the Estonian Popular Front was one of the first major opposition movements in the Soviet Union to emerge during perestroika. Initially, the Popular Front advocated for decentralization of the Soviet economy and greater autonomy for the republican governments, as well as for the democratization of the political system. But over time, the Popular Front embraced larger narratives of national independence and self-determination which were treated as incompatible with the Soviet model. By looking at the thematic structure of the Popular Front’s Russian-language newspaper Vestnik, this paper will examine how it presented these nationally-oriented narratives to the public. First among the themes continually featured in Vestnik was the formulation and reformulation of Estonian national and historical identity, which worked to frame the past as both present and future. These identities were placed within the broader scheme of Europeanness as a way to distinguish Estonia from the more eastern Soviet republics, namely the Russian SFSR. Second, as a Russian-language newspaper, Vestnik expressly addressed the issues relating Estonia’s Russian diaspora, many of whom had become increasingly concerned about their status in a potentially independent Estonia. Finally, Vestnik served as a venue for broader collaboration between nationalist and opposition movements spread throughout the Soviet republics, whereby programmatic and organizational framing came to represent a model of fraternal coordination among the movements. Through examining the repetition and renewal of these themes, we discover that the Popular Front was not nearly as nationalistic as critics argued, nor was it always as subversive as its proponents may suggest. In fact, as the Popular Front continually constructed visions of a newly independent Estonia, it remained politically pragmatic in its approach, and at the same time, promoted a message of historically-rooted, supranationalism